


A Liminal Space

by MemeKonH50 (MemeKonYA)



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 01:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13987479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemeKonYA/pseuds/MemeKonH50
Summary: “What iswrongwith you?”“What is wrong with— it’s three in the morning, Danno.” He excuses himself, lowering the gun.“You texted me,” Danny refutes, incensed, one hand waving around as the other fishes his phone out of his pants to show it to him. “You texted meless than an hour ago!”“Well— I wasn’t expecting you to come over. Atthree in the morning.” He defends himself, putting the safety back on, and leaving the gun on the kitchen island.Danny frowns at him, and points at him with a sole, accusing finger as he looks down at his phone and looks for something with his thumb.“Lynn just broke up with me,” he reads back to him. “Full stop.”





	A Liminal Space

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a lot of self-indulgent fluff. Enjoy.   
> Thanks Lady Oscar and lextenou for the title idea ♥

“What is _wrong_ with you?”

“What is wrong with— it’s three in the morning, Danno.” He excuses himself, lowering the gun.

“You texted me,” Danny refutes, incensed, one hand waving around as the other fishes his phone out of his pants to show it to him. “You texted me _less than an hour ago_!”

“Well— I wasn’t expecting you to come over. At _three in the morning_.” He defends himself, putting the safety back on, and leaving the gun on the kitchen island.

Danny frowns at him, and points at him with a sole, accusing finger as he looks down at his phone and looks for something with his thumb.

“ _Lynn just broke up with me_ ,” he reads back to him. “Full stop.”

Once he’s done he arches his brows at him, shows him the screen, where he can see the text himself.

Steve stares at it until the screen goes dark. 

He hears Danny sigh, watches him pocket his phone.

“Of course I was gonna come over, you goof,” he says then, deflated and quiet and fond. “I brought a couple Longboards and some of those unhealthy snacks you like from the vending machine at headquarters, the ones you hoard in the second drawer of your work desk.”

“And I’m the one who doesn’t respect your privacy?” He asks with mock outrage, even as he crowds against Danny to look through the bag he put on the counter.

“That, Steven, is not a hill you want to die on, believe me,” Danny counters, hip checking him.

Steve hums as he opens a Snickers bar.

“You know just because that has peanuts in it it doesn’t mean it’s nutritious, right?” Danny asks after Steve crams half the bar in his mouth.

Steve crams the other half in and starts chewing with an open mouth at Danny.

“Seriously?” Danny asks, nose wrinkled. “You’re an animal. Disgusting.”

Steve swallows and smiles, and Danny rolls his eyes at him and reaches for the six pack beside him, opening two bottles and handing him one. 

“Let’s go watch some really crappy action movies, buddy.”

 

Danny clears his throat when the credits of the latest The Fast & The Furious movie start rolling, his toes dig against Steve’s thighs, feet burrowing a little under his legs. He leans on the armrest of the couch, and picks at the label of his empty beer bottle.

“So...”

Steve takes a sip of his beer. It’s warm and more than a little gross, getting closer to the dregs, but it’s something to do other than catch Danny’s concerned eyes on him.

“Do you wanna talk about it, babe?”

“She said I didn’t really let her in,” he says, cutting to the chase.

“ _You didn’t really let her in_? What does _that_ mean?” Danny asks, and he can tell that he’s gearing up for a good rant, more than ready to get angry on his behalf.

“I didn’t tell her about the radiation poisoning,” he admits.

Danny winces.

“I’m fine,” he tries to placate Danny’s concerns again, although he knows it won’t work. 

Danny’s been giving him these looks ever since Jerry’s badge party, searching and so worried. And Steve knows Danny, he knows the way his brain works, convincing him that everything’s always gonna go FUBAR, always the worst-case scenario lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce. He didn’t want to be one more thing for him to be fretting over— but he also couldn’t hide this from him— couldn’t lie. Not to _Danny_.

Danny’s eyes bore into his, deep blue and kind of half-lidded from exhaustion and alcohol. He doesn’t say anything to that. He just moves until he’s leaning on him instead of against the armrest, feet propped up on the coffee table, shoulder to shoulder. 

His gaze locks on the TV screen, where the credits are still rolling. He’s not quite avoiding his eyes, but he’s pointedly not meeting them. 

Steve knows it means something, from Danny. Everything means something with him. And moreso something like this. But he can’t put his finger on quite what it is.

It’s like an itch under his skin. 

Everything he can’t quite decode in Danny always drives him up the wall.

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

 _I didn’t want to worry her_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it down. 

He knows that’s not it. Or at least not all of it. Not even half of it. 

He sighs, closes his eyes. 

“I guess… I guess a part of me didn’t think that she _needed_ to know,” he says, rough in the near silence of the living room. “Right now it’s just the spells, and some days not even that, and I just— I just thought that’s all she was ever gonna have to concern herself with, you know? What good would it do to unload this on her?”

Danny hums. Steve feels him stretching against him, going for the remote control. He turns the TV off.

“Is this about Catherine?” 

Steve snorts.

“Hey, that was a legitimate question, you sch—”

“—no, Danno, it’s not about Catherine.” 

“Okay,” Danny acquiesces.

“She was right.” He tells Danny, and opens his eyes, lets them adjust to the darkness, sees things gain shape, edges. He doesn’t turn to look at Danny, but leans on him a little more heavily. “I didn’t see her in my life, years down the road. Whenever this— _if_ this ever _does_ carry any long-term effects— and you know what I think about _that_ Danny, okay? so that’s a big _if_ , so… _if_ this does carry any long-term effects, I... I don’t see her being next to me when that happens. I like Lynn, but I don’t— I don’t see us ever having that kind of commitment to each other, I don’t see us being that to each other. And I guess I was always under the impression that we both felt the same way, deep down.”

“She didn’t?”

“I think she did. And that was part of why she decided to end things. She said I didn’t let her in, but she didn’t sound all that torn up about it.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are _you_ torn up about it? Just because you don’t see something lasting forever doesn’t mean you can’t mourn it once it’s gone, babe.”

Steve lies his head on top of Danny’s, watches as the first streaks of daylight start encroaching on the night sky. The position is a little uncomfortable, with the two of them curved into each other like an overgrown human pretzel, but he doesn’t really care. He’s pleasantly buzzed and feels lighter than he thinks he ought to feel, and there’s no nausea, no headache, and no case to run off to.

“I’m gonna be fine.”

“Of course you will, Aquaman,” Danny reassures him, giving one of his thighs a little hearty pat and squeeze. “Of course you will.” 

 

He wakes up the following morning (just a couple hours later, technically) curled up with Danny next to him, a dull ache on his back and crick on his neck, and he’s fine. 

He gets up as carefully as he can to avoid jostling Danny and waking him up— knowing how cranky he can get in the morning—, takes a shower (a sensible, three minute one), makes them both some breakfast, and doesn’t feel torn up.

He thinks about Lynn, about their chaotic first date, about Valentine’s Day, about their romantic staycation that didn’t turn out quite as anyone planned, and they’re all good memories, nice memories, familiar and safe and sweet.

And nothing feels hollow.

Danny starts making grumbling, sleepy noises from the couch then, stretching his arms, grunting about being at least ten years too old to be sleeping off a drunken stupor on a couch, and Steve smiles against the rim of his cup, forgetting his train of thought as Danny pads over to the kitchen with his hair all disarrayed and his eyes half-lidded and lazy, scratching his belly under his shirt.

Steve’s eyebrows rise even as he pushes a steaming cup of coffee in Danny’s direction.

“And I’m the animal here.”

Danny gives him an eye roll for that but there’s a grateful smile there, too, as he grabs the cup, fingers briefly grazing Steve’s.

 

( _“I’m gonna be fine.”_

“ _Of course you will, Aquaman.”_

And Steve knows he will, is the thing. Perhaps too easily.)

**Author's Note:**

> [Come hang out with me on tumblr!](http://memekon.tumblr.com)


End file.
